Business

Much of the reason why I was struggling for so long with successfully launching my business, Ultimate Freedom Lifestyle, was because, up until now, I’ve been trying to short cut everything.

Expecting people who don’t know anything about me or what I have to offer (cold traffic) to randomly see one of my ads and miraculously and instantly become a customer.

Just not how shit works—at least not for what I offer.

Just like in dating, you don’t walk up to a girl and say, “Hey, wanna fuck?!”

Sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly what I was doing with potential customers.

What I lacked wasn’t work ethic. But rather patience.

I didn’t want to take the extra time to do it right.

I wanted to be successful NOW.

I wanted to be free NOW.

So I did the bear minimum to get things up and running as fast as possible.

But that’s just not how shit works.

Unless you’re selling a garden hose, a relationship needs to be built with the customer before hand.

Just like in dating, you approach a girl, spark attraction, ask for her number, call/text her, banter back and forth, setup a time to chill, do fun activities… then, after the sexual tension is too much to bear, you do REALLY FUN activities…

This is the step by step process for not only dating, but also selling.

Sure, you can hack the process and get her in bed by 2:30am, but 95% of the time the sex sucks and the relationship doesn’t last.

Are you trying to make a quick unfulfilling sale? Or build a strong brand with Apple-like loyalty where your customers write you love letters and rave to all their friends about you?

The point here is that it pays off to think long term and play the long game.

95% of everyone in every industry plays the short game because, initially, that seems like the path of least resistance.

But it’s not.

Hence why there are so few people and organizations at the top, and so many struggling at the bottom.

Short term thinking only leads to short term gains, and your life becomes one big never-ending hustle.

Hustle is a great word. Especially great in the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey.

But hustling the rest of your life day-in and day-out just to make next month’s rent is for amateurs.

You level up by sacrificing short term gains today for long term residual wins tomorrow.

It’ll be harder and they’ll be a wider time-gap between work and reward… at first.

But in the end, you’ll pass everyone by who took the “shortcut.”

Classic tortoise and hare story.

Now, for the moment of truth…

Ya gotta ask yourself: are you playing the long game… or the short game?

“Part of being an artist is having an unwavering ability to look fear in the face and be like, ‘Hey, I’m ready to go down in flames in front of everybody for what I just made. And if I do, I don’t give a fuck because it’ll be in the name of what I made and it won’t be in vain. […] The best artists in the world make their art, they get behind it, and they evolve.” –David Schuler

My longtime friend and 2x Grammy Nominated Producer, David Schuler, has done some pretty epic shit in the music business and he breaks it all down and serves it up to you on a silver platter. If you’re an artist or entrepreneur, this episode is a gold mine! We talk about his entire journey from when he first got interested in music to eventually working with the likes of Pink and John Legend. But what’s great about this conversation is all the juicy details in between that got him there, which you can transfer to your own career and life, whether you’re an aspiring artist, an entrepreneur, or just someone trying to take advantage of your one life.

His experience working with John Legend, Pink, and Ricki Lee Coulter

Blending art and commerce: how to make money making art

Tactics John Mayer used to make it professionally

How to overcome fear and ship your art

How David and his band got an official spot on Warped Tour by being the “barbecue band”

How to be an effective producer so artists are primed to make their best music

Why he thinks Los Angeles is the most creatively fertile city in the world

1:48:30 – How him and his band sold 30,000 records on tour and became the 2nd band ever to chart the billboards without distribution (got attention of Virgin Records and put them in the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame)

1:53:00 – The conversation with his mentor, Billy Mann, who helped launch his career working with Pink, John Legend, Ricki Lee Coulter

1:55:30 – What it was like working with big artists and the mindset he uses to be an effective producer so artists are primed to make their best music

1:58:00 – How to produce great art when you’re working with numerous people or arms of the business at once, where everyone has a say

“Because I never got a chance to see ‘the menu,’ I didn’t know how delicious the entrees were.” – Brendan Welsher on his upbringing

Brendan Welsher went from selling drugs and making thousands of dollars every week ripping off coin machines to changing up his mindset and going on to become the marketing director of the largest manufacturer and installer of windows in the country with over 7 million windows sold annually, Anderson Windows.

In this fantastic episode, Brendan shares his gripping story about where he came from and how he was able to rewire his mindset and use his strengths to propel him into a life of abundance.

Along the way you’ll learn:

How he sculpted his salesmanship skills by selling flowers with his dad in parking lots with at 14 years old

How he leveraged YouTube to develop a single sales team that generates over 12 million in sales per year

His counterintuitive approach to getting an education that leads to a great income and fulfilling life

A simple way of looking at sales to be effective even if you know nothing about sales

Because what this simple notion means is that even if you “only” have 100 people watching your videos, or listening to your music, or checking out whatever it is you create, that’s ONE HUNDRED people who are stopping everything they’re doing in this incredibly busy and noisy world to pay attention to something you made.

That’s incredible!

Think about being in a room with 100 people, and they’re all watching and listening to you. It’s essentially the same thing.

So this idea that, “Since I don’t have a million views, what’s the point?!” or “What are people going to think when they see that I only have 100 views?!”…

It’s total bullshit!

First of all, you’re fortunate to have that many people paying attention to your work. A LOT of people get NO ATTENTION. So you should be super grateful for the people who DO pay attention to you and give them your all!

And secondly, almost all the gurus, actors, musicians, vloggers, and celebrities that you love and admire who get millions of views or listens or whatever… they started from 0.

So just remember that.

Because this sort of perspective, appreciation, and gratitude for the people who are following you NOW is what’s going to empower you to keep producing and sharing better and better content with them, which is the most fundamental practice to quickly increasing the number of people who give you their very limited and non-renewable resources: TIME AND ATTENTION.